Target carrier (1 Viewer)

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate
links, including eBay, Amazon, Skimlinks, and others.

Waiting for the sealer to dry on the wood for the rack I decided to try an experiment to remove the chrome from my side vents and so far it looks like a success.

Some sodium hydroxide and water for the solution and a couple of titanium plates for the cathode and running about 12 volts @ 6 amps seems to melt the chrome away quickly. This is the reverse of plating so the positive goes to the piece and the negative to the cathode.
View attachment 1050127


what kind of power supply are you using for your reverse plating?
 
Do you have a build thread on your other 55 too?

Cheers

Thank you very much.

Yes somewhere but I haven’t done much other than drive it. I’ve been sidetracked on building myself a mini blacksmith shop so I can build some Damascus knives, forge and grinders are done and the 70 Ton forging press and heat-treat oven just need to be completed then I hope to get back to my to needy pigs.

The Target carrier is getting a Webesto Thermo Top C heater to use as a cabin heater for camping and engine pre-heater for easier starts when parked in remote areas without power for my AC block heater. I also need to redo the front grill area to let more air enter sometime before next summer.



If I don’t get sidetracked again in the interim I will start cutting the Angry Pig apart for it’s make over this winter, I’ve been collecting parts and buying tooling slowly and I should be good to go by then.


what kind of power supply are you using for your reverse plating?


I’m just using a 30 Amp Single-Phase Full Wave Bridge Rectifier to convert AC to DC’ish, it’s mounted to a hunk of aluminum scrap for a heat sink, think I pay a buck or two and buy them by the dozen for projects like this. I control the voltage with a Variac transformer (variable transformers) I believe I paid around $500 for this one but I see them on EBay for under $100 now, watch the amps with a Fluke amp clamp and you can run this similar to a real CC power supply that you would use for plating.

On a side note I’ve used this same setup to anodize and electrochemical marking.



You can do the same thing with a 12 Volt battery charger but you have less control and I’ve burned up a few with these type experiments.



MDA990-3: Major Brands : 200 Volt 30 Amp Single-Phase Full Wave Bridge Rectifier Diode : ICs & Semiconductors



Variac Variable Transformer Selector
 
it's only metal...
 
70 ton press , nice! That,s not how they used to do it. :)

Yea they didn’t use surface grinders either but some of the truly cool patterns would be really difficult in a one man shop without some modern equipment.

Zoe Crist makes some unique patterns in quality steel, I’m hoping to mirror his process.





Bob Kramer also makes very interesting patterns in quality steel but he uses a very large power hammer, not sure I want to make the jump to very lager hammers just yet.





In the Shop with Bob Kramer
 
Cool hobby. I always liked playing with metal. I have an anvil and a black smith's vise, but haven't got a kiln yet. Look forward to seeing your setup.
 
Starting to cool off here in Idaho so I figured I should get my butt in gear and start mounting the Webasto Thermo Top C Coolant Heater I’ve had sitting in the corner of the shop for a few months now.

Nothing too exciting but I know the sty likes them some pictures..

IMG_20171005_180821082.jpg
IMG_20171005_180849877.jpg




Still haven’t cleaned off the pig party dirt, guess I should add that to my list..
 
that's CLEEEEEEN. what is your go-to tool for cutting plates like the one depicted?
 
I made a paper pattern and glued it to the .250” plate then cut on the band saw and smoothed out on the belt sander.


IMG_20171005_175357049.jpg





All bolted in and hooked up. I need to do a bit more testing then run a proper air intake air cleaner thingy and exhaust but for now I think its Skookum.
IMG_20171007_161612446.jpg
 
I suspected something other than a hot cut...
 
I suspected something other than a hot cut...

I used some existing threaded holes in the frame and needed to extend the rear hole around my cross member mount so I ended up with some funky offsets, had I planned on using one of these water heaters from the beginning I would have done something completely different like mounting it in the engine compartment. This location lets me mount everything in a semi-permanent way without cutting or welding any existing pig parts.
 
Nice! That should come in handy!

Little heater is Mucking Afazing!

~50° in the shop this morning and it had my engine block temp up to 140° in 15 – 20 minutes, after 35 minutes of running my Restomod heater I had 98° air coming in the cab of the pig.

I only ran the test for 2 hours but I believe this will be the cat’s pajamas when camping and sleeping in the back of the pig on our cold winter nights, being able to start the 4BT on cold mornings is just an added bonus.

Now I need to come up with something clean for the controller that’s accessible from the sleeping and driver’s areas and I can scratch this little project off my to-do list.
 
Any of you guys familiar with the Arduino platform?

I ordered a cheap eBay POS Bluetooth controller for my heater but it has limited function ability, this will let me test the concept of turning the heater on and off remotely but not much more than that.

Ultimately I would like to monitor battery voltage and shut to system down at a predetermined voltage, cycle the system on and off to conserve battery life, maybe even have a thermostat to control temperature. All of this is possible to control from my android based phone with the Arduino platform but after two days of internets searching I’m getting a bit overwhelmed with fact vs opinion on the best way to accomplish my goals.
 
Last edited:
Technically one of my batteries would last 10 hours at full Chooch and 15 hours at partial Chooch letting me still start the pig after getting a good night’s sleep on the second battery.

If I have the ability to turn off the system at timed intervals or temperature I could extend that time or reduce the risk of dragging the battery voltage down below minimum.
 
Sounds like something well worth putting time into, especially if you plan to sleep in it over the seasons.

Side note: our TT used to just have one standard sized deep cycle which would die overnight from the furnace fan...major suck, best thing was upgrading to two golf cart 6v so we can multi day in the boonies with out cranking genny up, happy wife makes trips SO much more enjoyable!
 
Any of you guys familiar with the Arduino platform?

I ordered a cheap eBay POS Bluetooth controller for my heater but it has limited function ability, this will let me test the concept of turning the heater on and off remotely but not much more than that.

Ultimately I would like to monitor battery voltage and shut to system down at a predetermined voltage, cycle the system on and off to conserve battery life, maybe even have a thermostat to control temperature. All of this is possible to control from my android based phone with the Arduino platform but after two days of internets searching I’m getting a bit overwhelmed with fact vs opinion on the best way to accomplish my goals.

I can limp thru some C++; got an Arduino sensing the mag switch of my joint press's pneumatic ram to interrupt the compress stroke...you're going to need to patch pieces of code together to do what you're describing, might already be a working code for this...after the code, you need a relay or relays to open and close the circuit to the battery, you'll need a thermistor to measure temp, and maybe a few other bits. you can prolly use a 12 volt relay shield that simply plugs onto the Arduino, but you'll need to verify the power supply is able to take the peaks and valleys of the alternator...look at the ruggeduino, by rugged circuits- it has a lot more robust voltage regulator and can handle a wider voltage window. talk to the bigger hobby shop guys in your area...robotics has got a lot of resources in these arenas.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top Bottom